There is no drabber place to be
Why is it that in the popular media super-psychopaths like serial killers are portrayed has having such rich inner lives? (Consider the highly cultured Hannibal Lecter.) That’s not right at all.
Anthony Lane, film reviewer for the New Yorker, makes the point well:
There was a time when, as a God-fearing member of the community, you could commit a single murder, drop a couple of clues, and wait to be unmasked. Now it’s all serial slayers, stacking up bodies like air miles. Filmgoers are supposed to find this multiplicity enticing, and we are constantly being invited to enter into the “mind” of the serial killer, but in truth there is no drabber place to be, and the idea that there might be an artfulness, even a style, to the act of homicide is one of the more pernicious fantasies that movies like to hawk.
It’s a drab, dreadful hell in there - all of which is inflicted on others.
alohatraveler says:
Thanks Dr. Steve.
I spent a lot of time thinking up elaborate reasons why I was being treated so badly. The answer was quite simple and much less complicated than I had imagined. The comment above should remind us not to fall into the trap of wanting to figure it all out and to accept what is… faster… so we can move on with our lives.
Friday, 9 May 2008 @ 1:30am
gennyrabbit says:
sociopaths are liars about their own personalitities more than anything. they would like others t believe they are funny, smart, tough, even brave in away and they are none of those things.
the xS would refer to the skeviest losers as someone you shouldn’t mess with. it was so lame.
i think films are really bad in this way. interesting characters like hannibal lector go to the heads of s,n, and other losers. they use their flamboyancy to make lack of ethics and morals seem cooler. i don’t like that other people can be manipulated this way. but really i think that for the most part people can’t….
Friday, 9 May 2008 @ 4:02am
OxDrover says:
I bought and was reading a couple of professional manuals on the risk assessments of violent offenders and sexual predators in doing the documentation and source quoting for the letters I wrote to the parole board and governor of our state concerning the upcoming parole hearing for one of my Ps who is also a sexual predator (ages 8, 11 and 14) and found some interesting things—one was just what this film reviewer said, there is LESS THERE than what we expect.
Dr. Anna Salter, who wrote one of the books I used, stressed this; we try to give them too much inner life. That we try to make them more complex than they really are.
Sometimes they are very intellectually bright, and can quote philosophers and “sound” very “deep thinking”—my P-son is excellent at this. I went back through some of his letters where he was “counseling me” on how to think, “deep philosophy” and in fact, some of the concepts were very deep, but HE DIDN’T GET THEM. They were just “words” but in no way did he connect with the meaning of those words, he had just figured out that he could say these and OTHER PEOPLE would react to them if he “sounded” sincere.
Re-reading some of his letters, though, I can see that there really wasn’t any “connection” there, it was all manipulation. A cursory reading might sound very “caring” and “deep” but at the same time, there is something, just a bit off, like a letter written in English by someone who is not a native speaker and who really doesn’t speak it well, the words and syntax are just a bit “unusual” or there are some contradictions. Sort of like some of the Internet scammers that Glinda and I were talking about on another thread. Just a “click off” somehow.
Gennyrabbit, you are right “sociopaths are liars about their own personalities more than anything else…” That is so true in the case of my son. He has been in prison all but less than 12 months since he was 17, he is 37 years old now, yet he fancies himself an EXPERT IN SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS and in LOVE and WOMEN of all things.
He had some female pen pal he was writing to, and one time he accidentally sent me the letter intended for her, and I read it. It sounded like some 15 year guy old trying to impress some girl. I remember thinking at the time that he was SO ignorant about male/female relationships that he didn’t know that he didn’t know anything. Yet, he was so arrogant that he thought he was an “expert”—
I never “bought” his stories that living in prison for 20 years, and more than half his life, made him an “expert” on “relationships” and “social interactions” in the free world, though I really don’t doubt that he probably is a “expert” in “prison survival for small-stature white inmates.” He would most likely have had to become one in order to survive.
Films and books paint the con man as “cool” and paint the psychopathic killers as interesting—and I guess in some ways we (humans) are fascinated by the macabre, the “true crime” books sell like hot cakes because people are curious and interested in such things as these horror crimes, and I would not hesitate to say that most of them are committed by psychopaths. Books on Ted Bundy, Scott Peterson, O J Simpson, etc. are written because they SELL. Fiction about this sort of thing also sells.
I don’t have television, I watch DVDs sometimes of various movies, but don’t watch “television” or “cable.” It may seem odd to some people, and in fact my best friend who was here this past week “couldn’t stand the quiet” of no television blaring in the background every waking moment, no street noise (I live in the boonies) etc. LOL I’m just the opposite when I go to her house in a large city, even though she lives on a quiet culdesac, TV all day and night, street noise, sirens, doors slamming, people’s voices from the neighbors’ houses.
When my children were small I didn’t have a television for seven years because I did not want them watching violence indiscrimantly, I wanted them to learn to play and be kids rather than sit entranced in front of the TV soaking up violence. I believe that seeing violence over and over, even “make believe” violence, dulls the senses to violence, especially in children. Violent video games, movies, and music foster this “violence is okay” mind set, in my opinion.
Sure, there was violence in this world before television—I doubt that Cain killed Abel because there was a violent TV show that made him do it. LOL Even without early exposure to television and movie violence, and violent video games, my P-son became a cold-blooded killer, willing to kill for gain or revenge without any second thoughts or conscience.
I grew up in a situation where we routinely killed animals in full view of the children in the family. Gutted and butchered them. When I went to surgery in school, I had no problems with wanting to “pass out” (and other students in my class did pass out) when I saw the blood or a patient on the table split open from top to bottom, because I had already seen plenty of “blood and gore” and was “used to it.” Some friends who are not used to such, drove up a while back here on the farm when we were butchering an animal and I thought that the woman in the car would pass out on the spot. She wasn’t used to seeing such things and it bothered her.
It doesn’t bother me at all to kill an animal for food, the only thing that really DOES bother me is if there is a mistake and the animal is not immediately and completely and instantly killed and suffers. I even go to the commercial butcher with my cattle to stand there with them while they are put down so that they don’t have any anxiety or fear which they would have if I wasn’t there to talk to them. If I have a dog that needs to be put down, I do it myself, because I don’t want to take it to the vet and have it AFRAID, or wait to go to the vet while it is in pain from an injury. To me, that is a kindness rather than being callous; but that is “the way I was raised.”
Even with all of this, there were parts of the “Passion of Christ” that I was unable to watch, and had to hide my head, and other movies with graphic depictions of pain and torture.
While I am “for” the “freedom of the press” and “artistic expression” I still think that the utter, senseless depictions of violence that are generally unnecessary to the “story” should be controlled in some form, because it is obvious that the makers of films won’t do this—because violence SELLS. So does Crack cocaine, heroin and lots of other things that aren’t “good for you”—just because people want it doesn’t mean it is “good.” Child porno is also “illegal” and prosecuted, but it is still available to those that want it—just as any “prohibited” thing will always be available for a price underground…so the answer is for parents to be parents and keep this kind of thing away from their children—and themselves…but I don’t expect it to happen.
But Ps, if my son is any example, will and can still become violent even without early and continual exposure to this sort of media violence. It is the Non-P children that I think it does more “damage” to emotionally. If any of that makes any sense.
I just wish our media didn’t demonstrate ways and make “cool” the “biggest baddest bad-ass on the block” being a role model for children.
Friday, 9 May 2008 @ 10:24am
gennyrabbit says:
^i know exactly what you mean about violence affecting non-P children. for them hurting another person is about control and the actual thrill and feeling smarter. the control part i think can apply to more people than just P/S/N’s etc. but for other people with out such serious disorders it somehow teaches that violence can be cool, funny, empowering. the bride from kill bill for example was not depicted as an emotionless murderer. she was cartoonish and then glorified. it doesn’t accurately portray them at all.
why doesn’t anyone make a movie about a sociopath who sneaks around the house and scans his wife who he “loves” computer while he sneaks out behind her back with other men and peppers the day with inexplicable “what the hell?” moments of confusion. and throw in their ability to transform from a hee-haw to suave and their her ability to be intelligent and also amazingly stupid. that’s a bit more accurate.
Friday, 9 May 2008 @ 4:16pm
OxDrover says:
BEcause WE have a rich inner life, I think that WE tend to think that the psychopath must also have this–it is like them trying to imagine what a conscience is, or us trying to imagine what someone without one thinks or feels.
We can’t imagine how they actually feel any more than we can imagine how it feels to be a snake, or a cat. A snake or a cat can’t imagine how we feel or think. There is just no frame of reference.
How could a person blind from birth understand colors? How can a child that isn’t bonded understand the concept of “love” and bonding?
Sure, they “know” that “lying” is “bad” and that people react negatively to it, but they don’t see any reason NOT to lie. The only thing they see is to “not get caught lying.”
It is sad, really, that so many people lack this capacity to love, to feel and care…their lives must be pretty empty, and I think that on some level they realize this, and that is why they try to fill it with “excitement” and risk taking behaviors.
Sometimes, in my anger at the Ps in my life, it is easy to forget that they are humans, and to visualize them as somewhat less than human. I do have the right, though, to not interact with them, to not allow them to abuse me.
Friday, 9 May 2008 @ 7:42pm